Tuesday, February 21, 2017

A Letter - On Rohingyas by the Asian Centre For Human Rights (ACHR)

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Ms Yanghee Lee, isundertaking a visit to various locations of the Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh from today, i.e. 20th February to 23 Febuary 2017 to examine human rights violations on the Rohingyas.

Most in the international community has taken "Symptomatic
Approach" to the Rohingya refugee crisis, viewed the Rohingya refugee
issue only from "Rohingya/Arakan tunnel" and have failed to conduct
local impact assessment on the settlement of the Rohingya refugees on the
local/indigenous communities of the CHTs. The UNHCR which has access to
Nayapara and Kutupalong camps in Cox’s Bazar district and is required to
conduct local impact assessment essentially remained a mute witness since
1992.

1. Current influx and ACHR's findings from the field visit to
Rohingya refugees at Ukhia in January 2017

The current influx of the Rohingya refugees started following
the attacks on the Border Guard Police of Myanmar in Rakhine State on 9th
October 2016 by the Rohingya insurgents in which nine Myanmar police officers
were killed. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR) reporting about “mass gang-rape, killings – including of babies
and young children, brutal beatings, disappearances and other serious human
rights violations by Myanmar’s security forces in a sealed-off area north of
Maungdaw in northern Rakhine State”. By the end of January 2017, the United
Nations was quoted of reporting influx of 65,000 new Rohingya refugees since
October 2016.

From 13-15 January 2017, researchers of of ACHR visited
Rohingya refugees who had taken shelter under Ukhia Subdivision under Cox’s
Bazaar. ACHR researchers found that the Rohingyas refugees are living in
self-made make shift camps and have no intention to return to Myanmar in the
light of the gross human rights violations and absolute lack of guarantees
against non-repetition of human rights violations by the Myanmar's security
forces. At the same time, the Government of Bangladesh is neither registering
them nor issuing identity cards to record their origin which is indispensable
for repatriation to Myanmar. There is no intention on the part of the
Government of Bangladesh to repatriate the Rohingya refugees while Myanmar
shamefully agreed to take back less 2,500 Rohingya refugees.

This calls of local impact assessment since influx of the
Rohingya refugees from 1992.

2. From refugees to rulers: The case of the Rohingya refugees
becoming effective rulers over the Bangladeshi Rakhines i.e. Marmas in
Bandarban district of the CHTs

The latest influx takes the number of Rohingya refugees in
Bangladesh to about 6,00,000 i.e. upto 500,000 undocumented Rohingya refugees
living outside the official camps as per UNCHR in 2014, 32,000 refugees living
in the Nayapara and Kutupalong camps in Cox’s Bazar district as per UNHCR in
2014 and 65,000 refugees who arrived since October 2016.

Majority of these refugees settled in the CHTs. This is
confirmed by the fact the national survey of the Rohingya refugees conducted by
the Government of Bangladesh from 2 to 14 June 2016 focused all the three
districts of the CHTs out of the six districts i.e. Cox’s Bazar, Rangamati,
Bandarban, Khagrachari, Chittagong and Patuakhali. Out of these districts,
Rangamati, Bandarban, Khagrachari are part of the CHTs Regional Council while
two remaining districts i.e. Cox’s Bazaar and Chittagong are bordering
districts of the CHTs region. The Government of Bangladesh has refused to
disclose the number of Rohingya refugees in these districts as none outside the
Nayapara and Kutupalong camps claimed as Rohingyas.

The influx of the Rohingya refugees started in 1992 and as per
the census of Bangladesh, the population of Bandarban district increased from
157,301 persons as per 1991 census to 298,120 persons as per 2001 census i.e.
an increase of 90% against decadal growth rate of 17% in entire Bangladesh
during the same period. In a submission under the Universal Period Review of
the UN Human Rights Council, the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact claimed that over
15,000 families of the Rohingya refugees (i.e. about 105,000 persons) had been
settled in Nakkhyangchari, Ruma, Lama, Alikadam and Sadar area of Bandarban
district with direct support from the authorities of the Government of
Bangladesh. The Marma people whose population is less than 100,000 have already
been reduced to minorities.